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Economy, security key to Indo-Japan ties

After its nuclear tests, India had to undertake a concerted damage-limitation exercise to placate the non-proliferation concerns of the international community. China and Japan turned out to be the two most implacable.

To "unite the knot" with China, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh had to travel to Beijing and meet the Chinese requirement that India did not regard China as a threat.

Last week it was Tokyo's turn to ask Singh to remove "the thorn from the throat", the diplomatic euphemism for India signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty before Japan could lift the economic sanctions. Tokyo was told India would try to build as wide a national political consensus for this as possible. But he urged that, in the meantime, Indo-Japanese relations ought not to become hostage to a single-issue relationship. Harmonising their differences, the two sides arrived at a clutch of agreements. These ranged from a high-level exchange of visits to increased Japanese business and investment in India. The two sides also promised to start a security dialogue.

The world of realpolitik is studded with ironies. The votaries of non-proliferation are its main violators. China leads the pack. Its transfer of nuclear technology and missiles to Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and others is the world's worst-keep secret.

Japan's defence and nuclear policy is as stunningly paradoxical. Constitutionally forbidden from maintaining armed forces, it has the world's second largest defence budget and a security alliance with the USA, including a nuclear umbrella. As the only country to have been ravaged by nuclear weapons, it subscribes to nuclear deterrence, first use of nuclear weapons and makes a distinction between non-proliferation and disarmament. It possesses one of the world's largest plutonium stockpiles and has the capacity to go nuclear at short notice.

Despite the nuclear contradiction, Japan thinks it has the divine right to uphold nuclear non-proliferation; therefore, the chasm between preaching and practising, policy and potential. It has 51 nuclear power plants that provide 33 per cent of its electricity. Japan's policy on nuclear weapons is based on three Nos -- no possession, no production and no entry. Hence the sermon to India on CTBT.

The nine rounds of nuclear talks between US Undersecretary of State Strobe Talbott and Singh made Japan realise it was being isolated from the non-proliferation discourse; and the rejection by the US Senate of the CTBT had the effect of jolting it out of its sulks into action. Hence the invitation to Singh without diluting its stand on CTBT, which Japan knows is no panacea for proliferation. It has now stopped repeating the CTBT mantra and scaled down its four non-proliferation benchmarks to one.

At the end of his visit, although Singh proclaimed that the mission was successful, like with China, there were no tangible gains since most of the agreements barring one or two, like increased student exchange, are a carry-over of past agreements kept on hold.

Even so, India's security concerns and compulsions were persuasively presented at various fora consisting of captains of business and industry, intellectuals and government officials. Equally deft was the argument for deeper economic ties with India. Japan exports to India, less than one per cent of its capital with investment stuck below the dollar two billion marks. By contrast, Japan has 18,000 projects in China, worth dollars 25 billion.

Jiro Akiro, a Sony advisor and pointsman for the Indo-Japan Business Co-operation Council, however struck an optimistic note, saying he saw light at the end of the tunnel. There were difficulties doing business in India, he said, but part of the reason for the low investment was the Japanese slump, he added.

The word "difficulties" is business shorthand for red tape, bribes and taxation. A high-level Japanese business commission will explore next year, areas of new investment in India. Japanese are confident that trade and commerce were the catalysts for an abiding relationship.

The idea of a security dialogue mooted by Japan has interesting possibilities, though there is some confusion among security experts on its scope: will it be defence co-operation, a security discourse or a strategic dialogue, as each has specific connotations. Japan's pacifist constitution and its security treaty with the USA impose limits on defence co-operation with other countries. Former foreign and defence minister Y Ikeda pointed out this difficulty. Singh clarified that both sides would discuss nuclear proliferation, disarmament and Asian affairs. This is a variant of the format of the security dialogue yet to begin with China.

A breakthrough was made in defence exchange in 1997 when, for the first time ever, a service chief, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral V Bhagwat, visited Japan. A reciprocal visit by his Japanese counterpart and vice-minister of defence, the equivalent of our defence secretary, followed. But there is no record of any military officer attending a defence course in Japan till 1997. The short-lived visits and exchange programme was halted by the nuclear tests, though language is the real barrier.

Defence Minister George Fernandes's visit to Japan, scheduled for June 1998, was a leading casualty of the nuclear tests. He will now go next month. Japanese, rather heatedly express a certain congruence of strategic perceptions.

Like India, they see China, not Russia any more, as the main threat but will never say so. India's improved ties with the USA, including the strategic engagement on non-proliferation and terrorism, have impressed Tokyo as much as India's vibrant democracy has.

But it is Japan's dependency on Gulf oil, which transits through the Indian Ocean area along the sea Silk Rote, that makes maritime relations between India and Japan the critical ingredient of any future defence and security arrangement. The seizure of the pirated Japanese merchant ship MV Alondra Rainbow by the Indian navy and coast guard vessels off Goa last month has impressed the Japanese of India's maritime prowess.

On India, the Japanese mind is preoccupied with three issues -- India-Pakistan, India-China and the nuclear fallout. Business and investment follow a separate track.

Until last month the Japanese posture was CTBT first, everything else later. That has changed though CTBT is still the dominant objective. Indo-Japan relations are likely to develop on the flowering of both economic and security ties.

General Ashok K Mehta